NHK
}} | logo = NHK logo.svg | logo_size = 250px | logo caption = NHK logo, known as "the NHK eggs", in use since 1995. | image = NHK_Broadcasting_Center_2016.jpg | caption = NHK Broadcasting Center (headquarters) | network_type = Radio, terrestrial television and satellite television broadcaster | Picture format = 1080i (HDTV) 2160p 4K UHD (NHK BS 4K) 4320p 8K UHD (NHK BS 8K) | branding = | airdate = | country = Japan | available = Nationwide and Worldwide | founded = Tokyo Broadcasting Station founded 29 November 1924; merged into Japan Broadcasting Corporation 6 August 1926; implementation of broadcasting act 1 June 1950 | founder = | slogan = ("Honest, seriousness")日本放送協会平成17年度業務報告書 - NHK Business Report 2015(p.42) | motto = | market_share = | license_area = | broadcast_area = Japan | area = Shibuya, Tokyo | erp = | owner = Nationally owned chartered by the Government of Japan under the broadcasting act | parent = | key_people = Ryoichi Ueda, President Hikaru Doumoto, Executive Vice President | launch_date = March 1925 (radio) November 1950 (February 1953) (television) | closure_date = | past_names = Tokyo/Osaka/Nagoya Broadcasting Station (1925-26) | digital = | analog = | servicename1 = | service1 = | servicename2 = | service2 = | servicename3 = | service3 = | servicename4 = | service4 = | callsigns = | callsign = | callsign_meaning = N'''ippon '''Hōsō K'yōkai | former_callsigns = | affiliates = | groups = | affiliation = | affiliations = | former_affiliations = | website = | footnotes = }} in Shibuya]] is Japan's national broadcasting organization.NHK: Profile NHK, which has always been known by this romanized acronym in Japanese,Sidensticker, Edward. (1990). Tokyo Rising: The City Since the Great Earthquake, p. 67. is a publicly owned corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestrial television channels (NHK General TV and NHK Educational TV), four satellite television channels (NHK BS1 and NHK BS Premium, as well as two ultra-high-definition television channels; NHK BS4K and NHK BS8K), and three radio networks (NHK Radio 1, NHK Radio 2, and NHK FM). NHK also provides an international broadcasting service, known as NHK World-Japan. NHK World-Japan is composed of NHK World TV, NHK World Premium, and the shortwave radio service Radio Japan (RJ). World Radio Japan also makes some of its programs available on the Internet. NHK has been the world's first broadcaster to broadcast in High definition (using Multiple sub-Nyquist sampling encoding, also known as Hi-Vision) and in 8K. Organization NHK is an dependent corporation chartered by the Japanese broadcasting act and primarily funded by license fees. NHK World broadcasting (for overseas viewers/listeners) is funded by the Japanese government. The annual budget of NHK is subject to review and approval by the Diet of Japan. The Diet also appoints the 12-member Board of Governors (経営委員会 keiei iinkai) that oversees NHK. NHK is managed on a full-time basis by an Executive Board (理事会 rijikai) consisting of a President, Vice President and seven to ten Managing Directors who oversee the areas of NHK operations. The Executive Board reports to the Board of Governors. License fee NHK is funded by , a system analogous to the license fee used in some English-speaking countries. The Broadcast Law which governs NHK's funding stipulates any broadcasting equipment able to receive NHK (i.e. all mass media broadcasting collectors) is required to pay. The fee is standardized, with discounts for office workers and students who commute, as well a general discount for residents of Okinawa prefecture. For viewers making annual payments by credit card with no other special discounts, the reception fee is 13,600 yen per year for terrestrial reception only, and 24,090 yen per year for both terrestrial and broadcast satellite reception.NHK Corporate Information | Receiving Fee System. Nhk.or.jp. Retrieved on 29 July 2014. However, the Broadcast law lists no punitive actions for nonpayment; as a result, after a rash of NHK-related Scandal including accounting one, the number of people who had not paid the license fee surpassed one million watchers. This incident sparked debate over the fairness of the fee system.Asahi.com: IHT/Asahi: 24 February 2005 In 2006, the NHK opted to take legal action against those most flagrantly in violation of the law.NHK.or.jp Summary of Press Conference (November 2006): On the demanding of fee payment through legal proceedings NHK domestic broadcasting stations TV programming NHK General TV broadcasts a variety of programming. The following are noteworthy: News NHK offers local, national, and world news reports. NHK News 7 airs daily and is broadcast bilingually with both Japanese and English audio tracks on NHK General TV and NHK's international channels TV Japan and NHK World Premium. The flagship news program News Watch 9 is also bilingual and also airs on NHK General TV and the international channels and NHK World Premium. World News is aired on NHK BS 1 with Catch! Sekai no Top News in the morning and International News Report at night, with the latter also airing on NHK World Premium. News on NHK BS 1 is aired at 50 minutes past the hour except during live sport events. NHK also offers news for the deaf (which airs on NHK Educational TV), regional news (which airs on NHK General TV) and children's news. Newsline is an English-language newscast designed for foreign viewers and airs on NHK World. In his book Broadcasting Politics in Japan: NHK and Television News, Ellis S Krauss states: 'In the 1960s and 1970s, external critics of NHK news were complaining about the strict neutrality, the lack of criticism of government, and the 'self-regulation in covering events'. Krauss claims that little had changed by the 1980s and 1990s.Ellis S Krauss Broadcasting politics in Japan: NHK and television news Cornell University Press 2000 pp39-40 After the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, NHK was criticised for underplaying the dangers from radioactive contamination. http://www.ex-skf.blogspot.com, accessed 5 January 2012. Emergency reporting Under the Broadcast Act, NHK is under the obligation to broadcast early warning emergency reporting in times of natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis. Their national network of seismometers in cooperation with the Japan Meteorological Agency makes NHK capable of delivering earthquake early warnings seconds after detection, as well as a more detailed report in just 2–3 minutes after the quake. They also broadcast air attack warnings in the event of war, using the J-Alert system.Corkill, Edan, "Planning pays off as NHK takes its quake news global", The Japan Times, 20 March 2011, p. 9. All warnings are broadcast in five languages: English, Mandarin, Korean and Portuguese (Japan has small Chinese, Korean and Brazilian populations), as well as Japanese. The warnings were broadcast in these languages during the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Sports NHK broadcasts sumo wrestling, baseball games, Olympic Games, soccer games, and a range of other sports. Music The NHK Symphony Orchestra, financially sponsored by NHK, was formerly (until 1951) the Japanese Symphony Orchestra. Its website details the orchestra's history and ongoing concert programme."NHK Symphony Orchestra website" Referenced 24 November 2010 Since 1953, NHK has broadcast the Kōhaku Uta Gassen song contest on New Year's Eve, ending shortly before midnight. Drama A sentimental morning show, a weekly jidaigeki and a year-long show, the ‘‘Taiga drama’’, spearhead the network’s fiction offerings. NHK is also making efforts at broadcasting dramas made in foreign countries as " ". Children The longest running children's show in Japan, }}, still airs to this day Monday-Friday 17:36-18:00 JST, Sunday 17:30-17:54 JST with rebroadcasts Tuesday-Sunday 5:00-5:24 JST on NHK World Premium. History NHK's earliest forerunner was the founded in 1924 under the leadership of Count Gotō Shinpei. Tokyo Broadcasting Station, along with separate organizations in Osaka and Nagoya, began radio broadcasts in 1925. The three stations merged under the first incarnation of NHK in August 1926.NHK Corporate Information | History. Nhk.or.jp. Retrieved on 29 July 2014. NHK was modelled on the BBC of the United Kingdom, and the merger and reorganisation was carried out under the auspices of the pre-war Ministry of Communications. NHK's second radio network began in 1931, and the third radio network (FM) began in 1937. Radio broadcasting NHK began shortwave broadcasting on an experimental basis in the 1930s, and began regular English- and Japanese-language shortwave broadcasts in 1935 under the name Radio Japan, initially aimed at ethnic Japanese listeners in Hawaii and the west coast of North America. By the late 1930s NHK's overseas broadcasts were known as Radio Tokyo, which became an official name in 1941. In November 1941, the Imperial Japanese Army nationalised all public news agencies and coordinated their efforts via the Information Liaison Confidential Committee. All published and broadcast news reports became official announcements of the Imperial Army General Headquarters in Tokyo for the duration of World War II. The famous Tokyo Rose wartime programs were broadcasts by NHK. NHK also broadcast the Gyokuon-hōsō, the surrender speech made by Emperor Hirohito, in August 1945. Following the war, in September 1945, the Allied occupation administration under General Douglas MacArthur banned all international broadcasting by NHK, and repurposed several NHK facilities and frequencies for use by the Far East Network (now American Forces Network). Japanese-American radio broadcaster Frank Shozo Baba joined NHK during this time and led an early post-war revamp of its programming. Radio Japan resumed overseas broadcasts in 1952. A new Broadcasting Act ("Hōsō Hō") was enacted in 1950, which made NHK a listener-supported independent corporation and simultaneously opened the market for commercial broadcasting in Japan. NHK started television broadcasting in the same year, followed by its Educational TV channel in 1959 and color television broadcasts in 1960. NHK opened the first stage of its current headquarters in the special ward of Japan's capital city Shibuya as an international broadcasting center for the 1964 Summer Olympics, the first widely televised Olympic Games. The complex was gradually expanded through 1973, when it became the headquarters for NHK. The previous headquarters adjacent to Hibiya Park was redeveloped as the Hibiya City high-rise complex. Satellite broadcasting NHK began satellite broadcasting with the NHK BS 1 channel in 1984, followed by NHK BS 2 in 1985. Both channels began regular broadcasts in 1989. In April 2011, BS 1 was rebranded while BS 2 channel ceased broadcasting and was replaced by "BS Premium" which broadcasts on the channel formerly used by BShi. Both channels currently air in HD. International satellite broadcasts to North America and Europe began in 1995, which led to the launch of NHK World in 1998. It became free-to-air over the Astra 19.2°E (Astra 1L) and Eurobird satellites in Europe in 2008. NHK began digital television broadcasting in December 2000 through BS Digital, followed by terrestrial digital TV broadcasts in three major metropolitan areas in 2003. Its digital television coverage gradually expanded to cover almost all of Japan by 24 July 2011, when analog transmissions were discontinued (except in three prefectures that were heavily affected by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, where it was discontinued on 31 March 2012). ''Studies of Broadcasting'' From 1963 to 1999, NHK published the journal Studies of broadcasting: an international annual of broadcasting science. Controversies NHK ban on employee stock market trading In 2007, three employees of NHK were fined and fired for insider trading. They had profited by trading shares based on exclusive NHK knowledge. On 11 July 2008, NHK introduced a ban prohibiting stock trading by employees, numbering around 5,700, who had access to its internal news information management system. The employees were required to pledge in writing that they would not trade in stocks, and were required to gain approval from senior staff in order to sell shares they already held. NHK banned short-term stock trading completed in periods of six months or less for all other employees. The ban did not extend to employees' families, nor did NHK request any reports on their transactions. Criticism over comments about Japanese wartime history NHK has occasionally faced various criticisms for its treatment of Japan's wartime history. Katsuto Momii (籾井勝人), 21st head of NHK, caused controversyBBC News - Japan NHK boss Momii sparks WWII 'comfort women' row. Bbc.co.uk (26 January 2014). Retrieved on 29 July 2014.Japan TV chief dismisses wartime sex slavery - Asia-Pacific. Al Jazeera English. Retrieved on 29 July 2014. by discussing Japan's actions in World War II at his first news conference after being appointed on 20 December 2013. It was reported Momii said NHK should support the Japanese government in its territorial dispute with China and South Korea.New NHK chief: 'comfort women' only wrong per 'today's morality'; programming must push Japan's territorial stances. The Japan Times. Retrieved on 29 July 2014. He also caused controversy by playing down the issue of the enforced sexual slavery of the so-called comfort women by the Japanese military in World War II by, according to the Taipei Times, stating "South Korea's statements that Japan is the only nation that forced this are puzzling. 'Give us money, compensate us', they say, but since all of this was resolved by the Japan-Korea peace treaty, why are they reviving this issue? It’s strange." It was subsequently reported by The Japan Times that on his first day at NHK Momii asked members of the executive team to hand in their resignation on the grounds they had all been appointed by his predecessor. At the end of April 2014, a number of Civil Society groups protested against Katsuto Momii's continuing tenure as Director General of NHK.Viewers target NHK chief Momii. The Japan Times. Retrieved on 29 July 2014. One of the groups, the , issued a public letter asking for the resignation of Momii on the grounds the remarks he made at his inaugural press conference were explosive. The letter stated that if Momii did not resign by the end of April that its members would freeze their payments of the licence fee for half a year. On 17 October 2014, The Times claimed to have received internal NHK documents which banned any reference to the Rape of Nanking, to Japan's use of wartime sex slaves during World War II, and to its territorial dispute with China in its English-language broadcasting. ''Karōshi'' On 24 July 2013, a reporter at NHK Metropolitan Broadcasting Center died of congestive heart failure. In May 2014, Shibuya Labor Standards Inspection Office of the Tokyo Labor Bureau certified it as a karōshi (overwork death). Although NHK did not report on this matter, it was announced in October 2017. Ryōichi Ueda, the chairman of NHK, visited the reporter's parents' home and apologized to them. [https://www.nikkei.com%2Farticle%2FDGXMZO21979080W7A001C1CC1000%2F&usg=AOvVaw1NEusY5a9fLyBZPZQ8Ptnm NHK会長が両親に謝罪 女性記者の過労死で ：日本経済新聞] See also *Domo, the mascot of the NHK since 1998 *Hobankyo – Organization based in Japan that enforces Fuji Television copyright issues *ISDB *Media of Japan *Japan Prize Contest (NHK) *Japanese television programs *NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories *NHK Spring Company *TV Japan – a mixed Japanese/English-language cable network partially owned by NHK airing in the United States *Ultra High Definition Television *Takashi Tachibana (politician) References Citations Sources *Johnston, Eric. (7 July 2009). "NHK a fount of info, a lot of it from the government". The Japan Times, p. 3. *Seidensticker, Edward. (1990). [https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=5wsOAQAAMAAJ Tokyo Rising: The City Since the Great Earthquake] New York: Knopf. . External links * *NHK official YouTube channel *NHK official YouTube channel *NHK online English *NHK WORLD English *NHK Science & Technical Research Laboratories *NHK/digital * * * Category:NHK Category:1926 establishments in Japan Category:Commercial-free television networks Category:Government-owned companies based in Tokyo Category:International Emmy Awards Current Affairs & News winners Category:Japanese-language television stations Category:Japanese television networks Category:Media companies based in Tokyo Category:Organizations established in 1926 Category:Peabody Award winners Category:Publicly funded broadcasters Category:Radio in Japan Category:Television channels and stations established in 1953